I'm not a coder... but I sort of understand it. How can this be accomplished? What file (CSS, etc) do I have to modify to fix this and where is that file? I cannot find it.

I use a Wordpress.org installation for my site. I have access to the entire server for my website hosting. What folder would I find to edit a file that changes the style template? Is there a style template? Do I need to edit a certain file every time I make a new portfolio entry?

Try to learn the very basics of html. Than you will see that rel="..." defines not the target of the link. This is done by href="...". Your href points to the image, not to the post.
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Ralf912Nov 28 '12 at 23:01

I'd believe you, except when I click on the element, it links to the lightbox object under "rel" so what does rel do? You did not help with the question.
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AndrewNov 30 '12 at 18:35

If we want the image as clickable link to another document, we can not use the lightbox. Because the link can only do one thing: display the image in a lightbox or link to another document.
The lightbox script missuse the rel attribute as indicator if the image should display in a lightbox or not. The a-tag is simply a fallback if the lightbox script isn't available (e.g. deactivated javascript).

Thank you for the help. I've previously been able to configure it to use the thumbnail image as a link. But the link connected to the image its self (in its uploads directory) What I still need help with is the LOCATION of the file that needs to be edited. I found the code you see from a view source but I cannot find where the file is that must be edited.
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AndrewDec 4 '12 at 3:39

That answer will be hard to provide unless someone happens to have a copy of your particular theme. What I do when I need to find the source of some code is use my text editor to search an entire folder (the theme folder) for a particular phrase.... CSS classes work well. I'd probably try searching for "portfolio-items" and see what files that appears in. I predict you will also need to remove the rel="lightbox" to stop the lightbox (and maybe even remove that script entirely) from firing.
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helgathevikingFeb 1 '13 at 4:51